Bryce's Blog

I hope that everyone is doing well, and are getting ready
for the monotony to continue.

Aside from something that is about to happen, which I wish
did not, things are going well because I can still do what I like.

As many should already be aware, I had gotten a few books
from Amazon recently so that I could get caught up on what I could not and try
out a few things.

Today, I will be reviewing another one of those books, which
is called In/Spectre Volume 5 by Chashiba
Katase.

As I have given a series synopsis in an earlier
post, I will not go over it again.

The fight with Steel Lady Nanase has begun, as Kuro and
Kotoko make their moves on their respective fronts, and thing seem to be going
well.

However, the enemy they face has the same powers as Kuro and
is doing everything in their power to keep the apparition alive, and Kotoko
must present different theories to garner support in her fight.

I kind of liked this volume.

Like many of the other volumes in the series, I did not want
to stop reading this for any reason the moment that I opened it up and started
reading, though I do have to satisfy the same needs as everyone else.

While this sensation is caused by slowly easing people into
a work, as well as writing things in a way that actually makes a reader feel
engaged, in work of prose, comics, especially manga like this, only really need
to do this towards the beginning and the sensation usually continues by not
making the reader feel lost and connecting the events together.

In this volume, Chashiba did just that by picking up the
opening chapter where things had left off.

Now, I am aware that Chashiba may not exactly be in control
of how the story is going, or even how the volumes are compiled, since Kyo
Shirodaira originally wrote this series as a single novel, according to
commentary found towards the end of this volume, and editors at the publishing
companies for manga have a ton of creative control, but I am still glad that Chasiba
did not start things off later than they did now, since this is the way to keep
fans of a series in engaged and shows that the person behind the work is at
least putting in some effort.

If Chashiba had forgotten how the previous chapter ended in
the last volume, I do not think that I could have become as sucked in by what
was happening as I was. After all, manga fans where I live can be just as
irritated by things that occur in manga as movie enthusiasts or avid readers.

Fortunately, things like that did not happen, and I can at
least give Chashiba a good round of applause for a job well done on delivering
an important thing needed to create a good story or series.

I also liked how Kotoko failed to achieve victory with the
first of her four theories to explain how things happened.

In our society, there are people out there that are trying
to prove their point about something, whether that be something like mankind
affecting the weather or that God exists, neither of which can be proven or
disproven beyond doubt, and they think that if they can provide a rational
explanation, which science tries to do, that people will believe them, even
though they end falling into the traps of logical fallacies.

Likewise, Kotoko tried to give a rational explanation about
how Terada was killed, and, even though it was quite sound, at least in the
realm of solutions in whodunits, people rejected it because it did not make
sense, much like how I reject man-made climate change because one of the
supposed causes of it is contains carbon, an element necessary for life, or how
people reject many religions because their proof is based on something that
makes us irrational creatures, and it both makes things much more interesting
and feel a bit more realistic.

Even though I do not expect this to be completely realistic,
since fiction that is as close to being realistic, yet enjoyable, as Spice &
Wolf is such a hard task to accomplish and this series contain tons of
occult stuff from Japanese culture, this series is considered a mystery series.
Fans of mystery works, regardless of whether you use it as synonym for works of
detective fiction and crime fiction or as its own branch of fiction, as I see
it, expect there to be a bit of realism so that things would be a bit more
believable, and if something that explained things as neatly as one would
expect in crime and detective fiction could explain things away in a work where
mythological creatures are real, that realism would be gone, especially because
Kotoko wants to resolve things by turning lies into truth.

Fortunately, Chashiba seemed to understand this quite well
and kept these events in this series, seeing as Kyo said in the commentary that
each of the four solutions presented were in the original novel, and I can give
Chashiba another nice round of applause, though I guess Kyo should deserve just
as much applause for not letting things get too unrealistic to be enjoyable.

Another thing that I liked was the humor found in this
volume.

While the humor was not really that unique, when compared to
the rest of the series or even manga and anime in general, Chashiba is still
able to execute things off well enough that I was able to get in a few good
laughs.

From the very beginning, there were comedic moments to give
the readers a break from things becoming a bit too serious and it helped to
make things feel much livelier than what John Grishman did delivered in The Whistler.

Readers of any kind of fiction want to be taken into the
world of the books, and for a writer or, in this case, a mangaka to do that,
the world itself must feel real enough, even with the liberties that can be
afforded to fiction, that the escape can be that much easier.

After all, our world is not always a happy one or a sad one
because there are so many people on the world that tragedy and miracles can
happen at the exact same moment, and people themselves do not realize whether
you are going through a difficult situation or not.

If Chashiba had stopped providing scenes where I could
laugh, I would have been very disappointed, because the of the fact the humor
made it worth reading this series, since the mystery aspect took quite a bit of
time actually begin, though Kyo did say that it would take a while for any
actual mystery to crop up.

However, because the humor remained, I feel like giving
Chashiba even more applause than I did before.

Hopefully, this can keep up as the volume progress,
otherwise it would start looking like I ended up wasting my time on this
series.

The thing that I liked the most though was how Kotoko
decided to use what people believed against them.

When the first theory failed to be received, Kotoko suddenly
switched things up to where the apparition was responsible for the detective�s
death, but the apparition was suffering because of the past.

While this does make sense, and would be an obvious method
to employ, since it is essentially tearing something apart from the inside, I
was not expecting Kotoko to use it because she did not seem to be somebody as
devious as Yokoya from Liar Game.

In the church that I attend, members are told to try and get
people converted over by finding the common ground between them and people from
other faiths, and, by doing this, we lower their guard enough that what is
known as the confirmation bias does not cause them to outright reject what we
have to teach them, though it may end up hurting them, which is why I believe
my church makes the problem of apathy worse, instead of bringing people closer
to God.

However, as much as I hate how my church employs similar tactics,
I thought it was ingenious here because it has already been established that
many of the mythical creatures came into existence due to the fact that people
believed they existed, so trying to manipulate the belief is the best way to
fight the apparition and prevent the real enemy from succeeding in her plan.

Seeing as Steel Lady Nanase was not really a ghost, as was
established in volume
2, and Kotok talked about how lies become truth in volume
3, I would have been very disappointed if Kotoko did not try to utilize
this method in the defeating the apparition and made things seem to be a lot
less believable.

Fortunately, Chashiba remembered that such discussion came
up and made sure to include a solution in which the beliefs of the people on
the internet were used against them, and it makes me want to let him or her
know that they did a fairly good job of adapting this into a manga.

Outside of those things, I cannot think of anything else
that I particularly liked, at least that could not be added to what I already
talked about.

Because the volume captured my attention quickly and held it
throughout the duration of the read, thanks to picking up where the previous
volume left off, there were things to laugh about, and that Kotoko did not
succeed in presenting her first theory and decided to use the belief of users
on the internet against them, this was a fairly decent book.

Although I liked the book, there are some issues.

However, aside from things that are too minor to talk about,
such as typos, nothing really seemed to bother me too much.

As a result, I will have to say that there is nothing worth
mentioning.

Considering that there was quite a bit to like, especially a
display of how belief can be used against people, this was definitely worth
reading.

I recommend this to fans of mystery, Kyo Shirodaira, and In/Spectre,
as they will like this the most.

As for everyone else, this might be worth giving a try, but
it might be better to read the previous volumes first.

If you liked this review and would like to see more, please
consider supporting me on Patreon
or buy the reviewed title from either Amazon
or The
Book Depository, so that I can find more worthwhile reads for you guys, and
do whatever you do when you find something that impresses you.